The Snoop Saga

While my Lady and I ride bikes on West Cliff, I'm able to continue my lifelong scientific surreptitious survey of humans and how they account for themselves. It is a double-blind study in that the participants never know about the study and I myself know not much more about such matters as statistics and surveys. Plus, it's peer reviewed, as I write it here and only I read it. I was able to determine, with an accuracy rate +/- 110%, the precise nature and ultimate consequence of any and all personal encounters of whatever sort under whichever circumstance. This is admittedly a bit of a load for stray snippets of overheard dialogue to carry, but I hope the breadth of the evaluation will stand in for the sprinkling of individual samples. The anectdotes of each speaker in turn throughout all recorded (by my memory) history always and forever formatted the speaker as the protagonist in profoundly correct and ethical contrast with an evil or misguided other who was invariably at great fault. The setting was often a workplace, slightly less frequently a social occasion, and involved as the foil a (former) lover or friend, sometimes, but most often a boss. The event under discussion was not a work in progress in that we should not expect the protagonist to ever become less virtuous, or her opponent more so. It is thus always a parable, and never an equal contest, as the speaker always wins. "He asked me (dopey falsetto):  `You know we have to bring the budget up to date' and I said (firm and sonorous): `We ain't me unless you mean to bring in the numbers' and I just left it thataway."  We are invited to imagine a transgressor standing stock-still in the office like a polled steer. It appears there is some need at self-validation in humans. They do not often display the chutzpah of superior bearing, yet they must develop an essence above average, and they do this by telling their tales. Everyone has some dog to kick in his own conceit. This must be healthy, because everyone does it. The sickly sort must atone for their unworthiness by ascribing a conspiracy involving various sinister combines utilizing dastardly means to undermine their just deserts and shortsell their pitiful plaudits, rendering them as lorn and loathsome hateful left-behinds (aka "teabaggers"). This study stands above idle eavesdropping, as history itself consists solely in such reports, with accepted versions only rising like scum on a cesspool as a consequence of disconnected victories in far unrelated fields. Thus Mark Twain, a southern boy, helps Grant write his memoirs, although Lee might provide at least as much truthiness. And the suspicious myths of Ulysses the sole survivor of a long adventure have only himself for credit. That Summer in Paris